Three Muslim inmates at Sterling Correctional Facility have sued three correctional officers claiming they were pepper sprayed during a prayer meeting and later assaulted when one of them filed grievances and contacted an attorney.

The civil lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of Donell Blount, Cecil Mason and Terry Phillips in U.S. District Court in Denver by civil rights attorneys David Lane, Zachary Warren, Michael Fairhurst and Igor Raykin.

The inmates are seeking compensatory and punitive damages against Sterling Correctional officers Ethan Kellogg, David Scherbarth and an officer with the last name of Quinlan.

The inmates claim that on April 15, 2016 when they went to a room for a weekly prayer service, correctional officers were already using it for another program. The officers angrily ordered the Muslim inmates to go back to their pods.

The three Muslim inmates were later told to return to the classroom for their service and when they entered they were immediately engulfed in a cloud of pepper spray, the lawsuit says. As the inmates gasped for air, the defendants laughed at them, the lawsuit says. “Plaintiffs felt a searing sensation in their noses, throats, eyes, and all over their exposed skin.”

Kellogg later admitted that he released the spray immediately before the inmates entered the “relatively small room.” The lawsuit accused him of harboring “a discriminatory animus towards them because of their religious beliefs.”

Scherbarth called Blount into his office and ordered him to drop all grievances and not file a lawsuit, the lawsuit says. He threatened Blount that if he didn’t follow his directions “life would be hard,” he would throw Blount in the hole he would be tortured.

Quinlan repeatedly ordered Blount to drop the court case and when Blount refused, Quinlan allegedly struck Blount’s back repeatedly with his fists while the inmate was in handcuffs, causing internal bleeding, the lawsuit says. Blount was also placed in solitary confinement and denied medical attention even though he had blood in his urine, the lawsuit says.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.

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